Philosophy and Why I Think It Matters - Page 3

On July 29 2014 17:58 Sapphire.lux wrote:
I'd add that some form of philosophy is integral to the pursuit of knowledge. The problem is, you have to have extensive knowledge on the subject matter first. So in essence, the "new" philosophers are the top, top scientific minds that are operating at the limit of our understanding of reality.

On July 29 2014 18:47 Prog wrote:


Fun fact: This is exactly what Aristotle said 2400 years ago and what various philosophers actually do since then. There are excellent philosophers of mathematics/logic that have a good reputation in the fields of mathematics (Shapiro or Kripke, for instance), Philosophers of science that operate with historical evidence (like Hasok Chang), Philosophers that work with computational and neuroscientific approaches (Paul and Patricia Churchland, or Paul Thagard for example), Philosophers of physics that have background in physics (Simon Saunders or Richard Dawid for instance),...

For anyone with a decent background in philosophy there is no relevant gap between "old" and "new" philosophers based on knowledge of any subject matter. There were always philosophers operating with up to date tools and respect/integrate what is done in other fields. But you have to be in academic philosophy to even know these guys exist, the layman view on philosophy does not notice them.

On July 29 2014 20:05 corumjhaelen wrote:
How much philosophy in a post that claims it has no value.
And the idea that mathematics doesn't bring any knowledge requires a very strange view of what knowledge is. How is Pythagoras' theorem not knowledge, I've always wondered.
Plus the idea that mathematics are the language of the universe (it brings us back to Galileo btw) seems naïve at best. Kantian view seems to me in everyway superior, but hey, you don't care about reading philosophy, unless it agrees with your world view I guess.

On July 29 2014 20:21 Sapphire.lux wrote:

It is the language of the Universe because it is the only tool, or as i said "language", that can accurately describe it in detail. Pythagora used mathematics, like in all geometry, to describe and solve real world problems.

How does it bring us to Galileo and why is that view naive? It's not mine btw, it's Lawrance K., one of the most important physisits of today. But hey, better hold a 200 year old view then to keep up with the times.

On July 29 2014 20:23 Prog wrote:
I highly doubt that mathematics does not bring or hold any knowledge. I'd like you to bring sources for such a bold claim. I personally think that a proposition like "The sum of all the angles in a triangle equals 180 degrees" is true, is known by us and is a proposition out of the realm of mathematics. [this point was also given by corumjhaelen] Please show how this does not qualify as knowledge (without some scepticist escape route).

On July 29 2014 20:23 Prog wrote:
I highly doubt that mathematics does not bring or hold any knowledge. I'd like you to bring sources for such a bold claim. I personally think that a proposition like "The sum of all the angles in a triangle equals 180 degrees" is true, is known by us and is a proposition out of the realm of mathematics. [this point was also given by corumjhaelen] Please show how this does not qualify as knowledge (without some scepticist escape route).

Furthermore, I think that any other science relies on mathematics being true. Additionally, scientists who use mathematics for whatever purpose believe that the operation they use are correct and they have reasons for that believe. Combined, this is likely enough to ascribe knowledge of mathematical operations to those scientists (they have a justified true belief about mathematical operations).

Finally, I'd like to point out that I gave you examples of philosophers who tried to understand the nature of things based on what was available at the time from the last ~30 years. Richard Dawid, for instance (I know him personally so I am confident in my claims here), has a PhD in theoretical physics and uses his expertise in physics for philosophical work. His book was even endorsed by John Schwarz and David Gross. Something interesting that he pointed out is that there are important physical theories, especially in high-energy physics, that are not something that can be easily (if at all) argued for with traditional scientific method (the one you praised so much).

String theory is the prime example for that. A decision whether we should believe string theory to be true can not be made with experiments, so we need to rely on other ways to justify a belief.

On July 29 2014 20:40 corumjhaelen wrote:

Because Galileo was to my knowledge the first to formulate it "Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe ... It is written in the language of mathematics". So hey, you can hold to your 400 yo view if you want, I won't make that an argument against it, i'll just say that your anti Kantian argument is bullshit, but I guess you have no idea about Kant anyway.

And because it would be the strangest of miracle that the mathematics we'd developped independantly of physical problem would suddenly come up in totally unrelated area. Cf Wigner's famous article The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences. Declaring "well, it just so happens mathematics is the language of the universe" is nothing but blind acceptance of this "coincidence".

On July 29 2014 20:55 Sapphire.lux wrote:


It seems like i wasn't clear enough so i'll try again. Mathematics, just like any other language, can "bring" knowledge when it is applied to real world things/ used to describe real world things. The geometry example you give, is mathematics applied to the real world.

So in and of itself, it's just a tool, a "language", but when applied to real world problems, it can describe them and solve them. I don't think i can make it more clear that that, and i'm afraid that i'll just have to direct to to lectures of Lawrence K. and Brian Green for a more in depth understanding.

On July 29 2014 20:55 Sapphire.lux wrote:


It seems like i wasn't clear enough so i'll try again. Mathematics, just like any other language, can "bring" knowledge when it is applied to real world things/ used to describe real world things. The geometry example you give, is mathematics applied to the real world.

So in and of itself, it's just a tool, a "language", but when applied to real world problems, it can describe them and solve them. I don't think i can make it more clear that that, and i'm afraid that i'll just have to direct to to lectures of Lawrence K. and Brian Green for a more in depth understanding.

On July 29 2014 21:04 Sapphire.lux wrote:

Oh FFS it's a figure of speech!!! We might just as well meet some super advanced alien life form and have it go "Mathematics? ahahaha yeah, we tried that, but it only takes you so far.. Now here is something MUCH better to describe reality!!"

But until that day it is the best tool we have that seems to describe the natural phenomenon and we can be proud as a species to have come up with such an abstract concept that applies so well in describing reality (though not perfect)

On July 29 2014 21:20 Prog wrote:


Let's try one last thing in simple argumentative form:

(1) Mathematics only brings knowledge when applied to real world things.
(2) In real world things you will not come by a perfect circle.
(3) We have equations that are true of a perfect circle.
---
(4) We have true, but unknown equations with regard to a perfect circle. (based on 1, 2 and 3)

That seems valid, but very implausible to me. I personally think that the mistake is in (1). (1) seems just false.

On July 29 2014 21:31 corumjhaelen wrote:

I've never seen a triangle in the real world. Please show me one. And why would you limit knowledge to physical things ?
Or from another point of view, isn't mathematics more properly the knowledge of how said language works ? Because some proposition are true and false in maths, indepently of what they describe.
I read your books when you'll read the Critic of pure reason.

So now you have no answer to Wigner's question, you're just saying "hey I won't complain". Much more reasonnable already. A pity though, it's really interesting, my physics teacher was right to talk about it. Crazy how he was interested in philosophy of science though...

On July 29 2014 20:42 corumjhaelen wrote:

I think it probably originates from a proposition at the end of Wittgenstein's Tractatus, which said maths proposition were always obiously false or wrong, because maths is just a logic language. Needless to say I think it's as hilarious as his claim about having solved philosophy.

On July 29 2014 21:56 Prog wrote:
It does not matter for the argument that you can use equations for imperfect shapes. The argument just claims that if you think (1), (2) and (3) is true, you have to accept that we have true equations of a perfect circle, which are not knowledge (4). I think the conclusion (4) is implausible and believe that (2) and (3) are certainly true. You yourself just accepted (2) and I guess you also accept (3). Now you either have to accept (4) or discard (1). To accept (4) you must have a very strange notion of knowledge, that I cannot grasp at all.

I believe that (1) is false. I think we have knowledge that for a perfect circle C = 2πr. That is knowledge not applied to any real world phenomenon, but it is still knowledge.

On another note:



You are correct that this is something out of the Tractatus (for instance in 6.2 he writes that mathematics is a logical method [not sure whether my translation is good, I only have the german Tractatus] 6.234 is similar). In 6.21 he writes that sentences of mathematics do not express thoughts, which I never agreed with, or perhaps never really understood.

On July 29 2014 22:05 corumjhaelen wrote:
I'm behind Prog on everything, and will let him keep on going, he's a better philosopher than I am^^
Also I have a very solid formation in maths (probably better than most physicists), did an engineering school, a project in astrophysics (sucky, but still) so don't worry, I'm quite aware what you're talking about, and I think it doesn't further your argument at all.

For me it's just a description of how maths is used by some people, but I don't see how it gives away the nature of maths at all.

On July 29 2014 19:44 Sapphire.lux wrote:
It's nice that you brought up mathematics, because that is probably the most misunderstood subject ever. You see, mathematics does not bring or hold any knowledge.

On July 29 2014 23:13 Prog wrote:
I don't know what (the nature of) mathematics is. That's a pretty difficult question. I could not even give a good answer to what (the nature of) philosophy is, even though I studied it the last 7 years. I think it is easier, and maybe even better to just give examples of mathematics, or of philosophy (and I tried to do that). However, my goal was in a sense humble. You said this:

I thought this is false. And I believe that i gave a good argument why it is false. In this initial statement there was no further qualification to knowledge, so I do not care that the mathematical knowledge I argued for is not about the "real world" (whatever that actually means). It is still knowledge, it is still important to us and while maybe not directly knowledge about the "real world" it is something that helps us understanding our world. Without purely mathematical, abstract knowledge we certainly would not know so much about our world. This mathematical knowledge gives us tools to work with in other sciences.

Now in the next step, if anyone accepts this sort of mathematical knowledge as a tool used in other sciences, what's so different with philosophy as providing something similar?

For instance: Inference to the best explanation is something that scientists frequently employ. (Not only sciences, we employ it in our everyday life all the time!) But it is something outside of the realm of the actual science. It is a problem of philosophy.

If philosophy can provide a good account of inference to the best explanations it benefits sciences that employ it. This is certainly not a comprehensive account of philosophy, but it captures a lot of what is actually done in philosophy of science. Reflection on sciences to understand how scientific belief formation works and how it should work to produce knowledge reliably.

If philosophy can in some case function as providing tools and frameworks for sciences, then we have a pretty good reason to ascribe instrumental value to it.